Pasadena, Calif. — There were several times in Wisconsin's loss to TCU where the Badgers' defensive linemen felt they were going to have a shot at Horned Frogs quarterback Andy Dalton.

One problem: Once they got even near Dalton, the ball was already out of the quarterback's hands.

In fact, Dalton could have loaded up on cologne and Wisconsin defenders barely would have gotten a sniff of it. Dalton never was hit on a pass play - and UW didn't even come close to getting a sack.

"The best thing about their quarterback is he got the ball out very, very quick," said defensive lineman J.J. Watt, who finished with just three tackles, two of them solos. "I was on him clean a few times and the ball was already gone. A lot of our defensive linemen had success, but the ball was already gone. You're not going to get many sacks when the guy is getting the ball out in two seconds."

This wasn't totally out of character for TCU, which allowed just nine sacks all year. Noting this, Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema said his team tried to instead play coverage and force Dalton to make reads to his second and third options.

The plan didn't exactly work, as Dalton completed 15 of 23 passes for 219 yards and a touchdown, an average of 14.6 yards per completion. The Badgers came into the game allowing an average of 11.9 yards per catch.

"Dalton impressed me all year long on film and he didn't disappoint the TCU fans tonight. He's a very, very good quarterback," Bielema said.

The Badgers also got caught on some play-fakes, accounting for passes of 44, 33 and 23 yards, the latter a touchdown to Bart Johnson.

Dalton had success on third-and-long plays, too. In the first quarter, he completed passes for first downs twice on third and 10, and in the fourth quarter got 13 yards on a third and 8.

"I think if we could have gotten a little pressure on him the outcome might have been different, who knows," said defensive tackle Patrick Butrym.

On a third-and-goal play from the 4 in the first quarter, Watt had a chance at Dalton but bit on a fake, moving to his left as Dalton sprinted in the other direction to the corner of the end zone for a touchdown and a 14-10 lead. TCU would never trail again.

"He's a good football player and you give your best football player the ball," Watt said. "We didn't stop him and that's how you lose a football game."

Watt did knock down one pass, as did Louis Nzegwu, but, according to Watt, UW's linemen didn't do a good enough job getting their hands up.

The same couldn't be said about the speed in which Dalton got the ball out of his hand.

"We had some very good pass moves going on and we felt we beat their O-line a little bit, but at the end of the day he got the ball out quick enough to beat us and obviously they won the game because of it," Watt said.

About the only time Dalton got dirty was when he didn't mind - taking a knee at the end of the game to finish off TCU's victory.